Hopefully by now, everyone who wants to has listen to or read the full content of the Reith Lectures. Lord Broers’ final lecture was, in my opinion, the most interesting and radical of the series. In it, he called for a stronger connection between scientists, technologists & engineers and everyone else, something with which I heartily agree.

Also, he discussed the alarming fact that we already have the technology to mitigate important ecological and social problems, but we aren’t using it. We could, for example, make energy meters into cool-looking kitchen applicances that show householders exactly how much power they are consuming at any given moment. This would allow consumers of energy to take control of their consumption - helping people control their energy bills and societies control their energy use.

When I heard this idea, I stopped what I was doing and listened to it again. We have the technology. For less than a cheap DVD player, we could all know the amount of power we use. Knowledge is the first step to making any change and it really is shocking that I do not know how much power I consume in a given day. How can I make any kind of informed decisions about my power consumption if I do not even have the most basic information?

This is the lesson I took from the final Reith Lecture. We have the technology for so many applications that never get used because there is no business model for things that promote ecology, fairness and helping people become more concientious citizens of the world.

We have the technology. Maybe we consumers should start demanding it.